Your children are next
An open letter to the elders of the American Jewish community
Nothing else has worked. Not the generations of inequality and the decades of oppression. Not the raids or demolitions or settler pogroms. Not the sniper’s bullets in children’s bodies, not the air strikes destroying entire neighborhoods. None of that could make you see the legitimacy of the other view, the right for that view to exist, even if you didn’t see it that way.
Instead, you supported the campaign to set things straight. You donated to the organizations that led attacks on anyone with those views – AIPAC, the ADL, The David Project – and accepted or welcomed harassment campaigns like Canary Mission. You pushed leaders out of your communities, you got people disciplined or fired. Or: maybe you didn’t do any of these things, but you allowed your friends to.
You thought it was all relatively harmless, or strong medicine, an educational scolding: a naive next generation who just didn’t understand the history, the truth about Israel. Small costs for the safety of our people: silencing where possible, exclusion where needed.
Kidnapping people, physically removing them from the conversation, was always going to be next.
They’re kidnapping people like Mahmoud Khalil because of those beliefs and they’re kidnapping people like Badar Suri because of perceived association with those beliefs. They’re hunting people because they participated in protests, people like doctoral student Momodou Taal and undergrad Yunseo Chung, a legal permanent resident who has lived here since the age of seven. So far, that doesn’t seem to have worked to shock the conscience of you, your peers, or your organizations. Perhaps this is because, like over there, it hasn’t been your people.
It will be. You might have thought your children, grandchildren, liberal cousin or lefty niece were wrongheaded, but you wouldn’t want them in a cell, wouldn’t wish them deported. Probably have never imagined it. They’re Jewish, after all, and likely white, very likely American.
Start imagining it.
Chuck Schumer, that unflagging Jewish supporter of Israel, is “not Jewish anymore” according to the president. This regime is very willing to kidnap white tourists. It doesn’t mind picking up American citizens.
The arrest, incarceration, and attempted expulsion of people because of their perceived support for Palestinian rights is not an invention of this administration – it is the culmination of decades of your efforts or your permission. Palestinians and people of descent from other countries in the region would be the first victims of state terror, and they will face the worst conditions, but they will not be the last. Probably in your family and almost certainly in family of your friends, you have Jewish people who have voiced their support for a ceasefire in Gaza and for Palestinian rights. Some have already faced serious consequences, such as Student Workers of Columbia president Grant Miner, who was recently expelled from the school. More are now bound to. The consequences can get worse. Your children are next.
You are not solely responsible for bringing us to this point, but you are solely responsible for what you do about it now. We had hoped that you would be able to care enough for the humanity of the people facing destruction in Israel and Palestine. We had hoped that you would speak out when our friends and allies were persecuted here for defending them. We do not have much hope that you will act now to prevent further arrests of others’ children, nor the coming detention of your own. But we do hope that you will prove us wrong.